writer
who touches upon Cooper, "had succeeded in the painting of character
to the same extent that he did in the painting of the phenomena of
nature, he would have uttered the last word of our art." This is no
mean praise. Cooper is read because he is interesting. He shall
continue to be read for another reason. He is wholesome and vigorous.
The air we breathe is the air of the pine forest and the salt sea.
Youth is forever attracted by the mystery and adventure of primitive
life. As America becomes more and more densely settled the imagination
will turn back to the early times when the bear and the deer, the
settler and Indian were tracking the trail through the forest and
along the shore. For this reason Cooper is likely to remain an abiding
force in American literature.

XLIX

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY AND BISMARCK

John Lothrop Motley, the American historian, a writer who in his _The
Rise of the Dutch Republic_ produced a history as fascinating as a
romance and a work that was immediately in Europe translated into
three different languages, was, after graduation from Harvard, a
student at Goettingen. Here he studied German so well that in after
years he was asked by the emperor of Austria whether he were not a
German. Here too he became acquainted with Bismarck.

That they were great friends is evident from letters by Bismarck
himself. "I never pass by old Logier's House, in the
Friedrichstrasse--wrote Bismarck in 1863--without looking up at the
windows that used to be ornamented by a pair of red slippers sustained
on the wall by the feet of a gentleman sitting in the Yankee way, his
head below and out of sight. I then gratify my memory with remembrance
of 'good old colony times when we were roguish chaps.'" And here is
another part of a letter which illustrates that even dignitaries like
to unbend and become like boys again. This letter was written by the
minister of foreign affairs to the minister of the United States at the
court of Vienna:

Berlin, May 23d, 1864.

Jack my Dear,-- ... what do you do that you never write a line
to me? I am working from morn to night like a nigger, and you
have nothing to do at all--you might as well tip me a line as
well as looking at your feet tilted against the wall of God
knows what a dreary color. I cannot entertain a regular
correspondence; it happens to me that during five days I do
not find a qua